Friday 25 July 2008

Quilting experiments 2

Following on from the previous post, I decided that I wasn’t that happy with anything yet, so I went back to the computer and tried floating a few of the ideas so far on the back of the sofa and here’s the result.



To get the area on the sofa back I selected it in PS and then copied it to a new document, this then allowed me to paint in the stripes and also try some filters, and when I was happy I just pasted them back onto the sofa to see what they looked like.

Artistic- palette knife


Artistic-rough pastels


Artistic-coloured pencil


I didn’t really like any of these ideas so I went back to the original squares that I created when I did my colour study exercise (Sandra Meech) and selected an area I liked. As I wanted to soften the line I put the squares into PS and put the Liquefy filter on them to bend the shape a bit. I also went back to the idea of the composite and floated an image and some text over the top, and drew in some simulated stitch marks.



At last I was beginning to feel I was getting somewhere. I decided to go for graduated blocks of colour which would give me a cross between squares and stripes, and I had a quick go on in PS to see if the idea was viable.



Getting there! But too much purple and the design process on the computer felt too restrictive.



I now went back to the sketchbook and using this book as a guide I started to create ideas for stripes and lattices.



I worked to a size of 12x12 cm with the intention of scaling up to 12x12 inches, but due to a mistake later on this ended up as 12x10.5 inches.
The design on the bottom right is a WIP and the top left is the one I chose to work with, using my dyed fabrics.



As you will see from the picture above I got so carried away that I cut the bottom section the same as the top, hence the discrepancy in the sizing. I also managed to join everything back to front so the design didn’t match the sketch.
Still it’s all part of the learning curve.



As I didn’t like the new arrangement I changed the format to portrait.



I could now see that these bold colours needed knocking back, so I set about overlaying them with images printed on to ExtravOrganza and printing straight on to the fabric with the little printing blocks I made from Funky Foam. The bottom left fungus has been printed onto ExtravOrganza and painted over with Procion, (Koh-I-Noor) it worked very well. The other prints have been done with a permanent stamping ink.
I sandwiched this top layer with a layer of lightweight Warm Bond, a thermally bonded cotton batting, and a layer of soft pre washed calico. Lots of quilting stitches to finish off.



This is the first of 3 samples, the other 2 are still WIP’s which I will blog about, together with the throw binding and the sashing, next time.

8 comments:

Unknown said...

have really enjoyed watching your development of this piece, loved how the organza overlays brought the whole thing together

Linda B. said...

Fascinating, as ever, to work through your thought processes with you. I never think to take photos at this stage.

I really like the way you deal with the problems you come up against.

Julie said...

I'm glad somebody else gets carried away and gets things back to front! (Actually, maybe there's something subconscious going on when that happens?)

Thank you for stepping us through your process. I like this sort of block arrangement and the organza works really well. I like the colour combination too. The hand stitching gives it some lovely texture.

hippopip said...

Oh Sharon this piece is superb I did like the purple and orange colour scheme but seeing it all together you made the right decision,welldone you have worked hard onthis piece to great effect

Purple Missus said...

You have worked hard on this Sharon but it has paid off in the end. This sample is really good. I like the printed organza idea, really sets it off.
As for the room setting with the throw on the sofa - that is amazing. It just looks so real!

Val said...

It's all come together beautifully Sharon - it's really interesting seeing how you get there! Look forward to seeing the other two pieces. Val

Shirley Anne Sherris said...

You are certainly covering some ground with this one. Glad the Funky foam proved useful. It will be interesting to see what the final choice is.

Anonymous said...

Hello Mum,
I love the way you work the colours and themes together. As others have rightly said: the gauzy fabric really works for the piece.
Love, Pru